Massachusetts officials on Friday are expected to defend their
crackdown on sales of vaping products in a courtroom battle testing the
toughest prohibitions yet in a rapidly developing response to
e-cigarettes and their potential link to a lung disease.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston has set a quick schedule
to consider whether to block Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s
administration from enforcing a four-month ban on the sale of vaping
products.
Baker’s move came as federal officials on Thursday reported that 18
people have died from a mysterious vaping-linked illness that has
sickened more than 1,000 in the United States.
Trade group Vapor Technology Association is challenging Baker’s Sept. 24 ban in a lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday.
The VTA group prevailed in a hearing in New York state court on
Thursday, when a judge temporarily prevented the state from enforcing a
more limited ban, blocking the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, from
taking effect. [nL3N26P0V1]
VTA, which sued along with the operators of several vape shops in
Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, said the order amounts to
an unconstitutional prohibition on retail and online advertising of
their legal products.
The group’s lawyers, including Joseph Terry of Williams &
Connolly, argued the order not only violated the plaintiffs’ free speech
rights under the U.S. Constitution, but also the Commerce Clause’s
prohibition on state laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce.
Baker announced the ban on sales of e-cigarettes and vaping supplies,
both those used for nicotine and THC, the psychoactive ingredient in
marijuana, which is legal in the state, in response to the nationwide
surge in a sometimes deadly lung disease linked to vaping.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked vaping
to 18 deaths and 1,080 confirmed and probable cases nationally in
mostly otherwise healthy people who contracted the mysterious
respiratory illness. It has said most patients affected reported using
products containing THC.
More than two-thirds of patients are male. The median age of cases is
23 years, with about 62% of patients aged 18-34, according to the CDC.
The VTA says Baker’s ban, if left standing, will irreparably destroy
Massachusetts’ $331 million nicotine vapor products industry and the
livelihoods of the nearly 2,500 workers it employs.
The lawsuit is one of a number filed nationwide by vape shops and the
VTA challenging restrictions announced by various states in response to
the outbreak of vaping-related illnesses.
Governors in Michigan and Rhode Island have also restricted sales of
flavored e-cigarette products in recent weeks. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine
on Tuesday called on state lawmakers to pass a ban on most flavored
e-cigarettes.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-vaping-massachusetts/massachusetts-set-to-defend-vaping-ban-toughest-in-nation-in-court-idUSKBN1WJ137
